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failures across the sporting community,
particularly at the premier end, have received
considerable publicity, the drivers that led to the
present situation have only been scantily analysed.
Malcolm Speed, Chair of The Coalition of
Major Professional and Participation Sports
(COMPPS) points to many issues but prefaces
his observations by asking that there be some
perspective on them.
"This doping is very likely to be isolated to a
few teams who had contacts with a small number
of [criminal] individuals," he says, but he suggests
it is happening on a larger scale overseas and could
become a big issue in Australia "if we don't get our
act together."
His hunches are not without foundation.
COMPPS received confidential briefings in the
wake of the doping report. The orga nisation
of major professional sports unites for common
interests such as anti-doping, anti-syphoning,
copyright and making government submissions.
"Lots of these peptide and performance
-enhancing substances are found in gyms and are
part of the body-building industry with bikies
trafficking in substances, so I think it is stretching
the criminal aspect a bit," he says.
"But peptides are new, very difficult to detect and
the technolog y being developed for such detection
is changing so quickly it is hard to keep up."
They are therefore presenting an opportunity for
risk takers.
"We need to revisit this from a boa rd perspective."
Speed says it is fair to ask if the culture of all
sporting bodies is defective, but that it is important
not to generalise.
Wake-up call
Notwithstanding his scepticism about the scope
of the doping, he says the issue is a wake-up call
for ever y sport.
"There are many examples of sporting
excellence where corner s haven't been cut a nd
where the culture is fine, but that culture cannot
be taken for granted," he says.
"We have grow n to have this expectation that
second is not good enough."
Speed says sport has almost created an industry
of coaches and expert consultants who specialise
in establishing leadership teams within club
frameworks around leadership groups.
"Until 10 years ago we didn't talk about
culture, but in sport a lot of effort goes into
creating a sound culture - a sound moral compass
for the organisation, he says.
He says the sporting landscape ha s become
crowded with a lot of competitive professional
teams jostling for sponsorship and funding. This
in itself puts pressure on athletes and teams to meet
extremely high benchmarks -- and as has now been
revealed, at a price that treads outside the boundaries.
"It has become big business and is so expensive
to run, there is not much between success and
failu re," Speed says.
He points to the vindictive feeding frenzy
around athletes' performance at the London
Olympics last year being a very different scenario
to what it used to be.
"We won't be any less competitive or driven
to win [with a new compliance regime] but a
great deal more consideration will have to go
into how we go about winning.